November, December 2009 & January 2010 
Sky Report :Primary & Middle Schools
by Dr. Bob Doyle, Portable Planetarium Teacher

Resources for Primary School Teachers

• Primary School Sky Basics
• November, December 2009 & January 2010
  Skies for Primary Grades

Primary School Sky Basics

On a clear night, ½ of the universe is visible from your backyard! The night sky appears dark because space is mostly empty and the universe is expanding (growing in size). The night stars are distant suns that are much, much further away  than our sun, our home star. The closest heavenly body to us is our moon, which goes around the Earth about every 4 weeks. With our eyes, we can see grey patches on the moon, which are huge lava plains that hardened and cooled in moon’s early history.

As  the moon orbits Earth, it is lit up by the sun. The moon has a day side and a night side, just like our Earth. Whenmoon appears skinny, we are mainly seeing its night or dark side. When the moon appears full or nearly full, we are viewing mostly the moon’s day side. The nearest planets appear as bright, steady points of light. Mercury and Venus with  their small orbits, always appear close to the sun, either in the eastern dawn or western dusk.  The three outer planets that  may  seen at any time of the night are Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.  At most  about 1,000 stars can be seen on a dark, moonless night  These stars are  close by  neighbors to our sun within our vast galaxy that has many more stars than the billions of people alive on Earth.

November, December 2009 & January 2010
Skies for Primary Grades

As 2009 comes to a close,  the brilliant white-blue star Vega (vee-GAH) sparkles in the Northwest. Above Vega is the Northern Cross (Cygnus), whose 5 brightest stars  form a large cross with the bright star Deneb at the top of the cross. In the East, you can see the 7 Sisters or Pleiades star cluster, whose 6 stars form a tiny dipper (not the Little Dipper). Below the 7 Sisters is the orange star Aldebaran, which marks the eye of Taurus, the Bull. 

Late in the evening, you can see Orion, the Hunter, the year’s brightest star group. Orion has a three star belt, which points to the 7 Sisters star cluster. The Big Dipper begins to be seen again as the end of the year approaches, appearing low in the North. The two rightmost stars of the Dipper point up to the North Star, a modest star appearing half way in the North.  The very bright planet Jupiter slowly creeps lower each month towards the western horizon. Jupiter is the brightest point of light in the evening sky, shining steadily among the stars of Capricornus.

In the late evening hours, the planet Mars may be seen low in the East.  In the eastern dawn sky, the planet Venus drops into the sun’s glare in December, where it is hidden during January and February.  The evening moon will nearly line up with Jupiter at dusk on November 23rd,  December 21st and January 17th. The late evening moon will line up with Mars on November 8th,  December 5th, January 2nd and January 29th. The bashful planet Mercury may be spied very low in the southwestern dusk in mid December.

To learn more about the sky, visit  the Frostburg State Planetarium for its free shows on Sundays at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Following these programs are tours of the Science Discovery Center at about 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.

For additional information, contact:

Dr. Robert Doyle, Planetarium Director
Frostburg State University
Department of Physics and Engineering
101 Braddock Road
Frostburg, MD 21532-1099
(301) 687-4270
rdoyle@frostburg.edu